Heating

As mentioned in the closet post, the plumbers showed up and started installing the heating...

They started on the downstairs sections as well.

I'm not crazy about the baseboard (water) heat, since the rest of the house is steam radiators.  But this is what they recommended and does seem to make sense for tying it into the rest of the system.

Master Bath & Closet- a little progress

We've gotten a little bit of progress going on in the master bath & closet!

First, we painted the closet...

It is a shade lighter of the purple in the bathroom, although in photos it looks almost identical.  It does look lighter in the sunlight that comes in from the closet window (we still don't have lights hooked up in there, so we'll see how it looks when those have been connected!)

The plumbers spent half a second in the master bath... mostly complaining that we had selected a pedestal sink.  They "have never, ever installed anything but vanity cabinets in a master bath" and voiced his concerns about lack of storage.

Grrrr.... I understand that more modern houses usually have big vanities with double sinks, but these guys obviously don't do much old house plumbing. There are tons of master baths with pedestal sinks on pinterest or in Old House Journal & This Old House magazines/websites!  Not to mention we have a master closet less than a foot away for storage, plus we'll have an antique dresser in there about 4 feet from the sink!

I wish they'd stop commenting on the design choices and just get it installed! (sigh!)

Master Bathroom Tile (post 1 of ?)

After the MANY days of sheetrock/spackle posts, I'm scared to even label the tiling posts by days.  

I don't know if it's that we've been conditioned by all the half hour TV renovation shows to think that these things happen more quickly than they really do... or if these guys are, in fact, really slow.  Maybe a bit of both!

Anyway, I think I'll try to consolidate the posts a bit- since I'm over a week behind with posting the progress, I'll tell you it isn't going as quickly as I'd like.

The first day that the tiler was here, he got all of his gear set up in the master bedroom (still empty from tearing down the ceiling).

Then over the next two days he got started with the shower tray & mudding...

I should also add here that we asked our contractor to add a little shower shelf for shampoo bottles:

As the shower tray was setting, he moved on to "mudding" the rest of the floor:

On day 3 of tile prep, the plumber finally showed up.  After double checking the tub he decided that he needed to move the drain pipe out from the wall a bit... which, of course, is better to do now than after the tiling has been done. 

So, now that those are completed, we will be able to move forward with the tiling!

Three Inspections Passed!

The rough electrical inspection was passed a few weeks ago, and then we had the rough plumbing inspected two weeks ago, and it passed as well.

Mike filled in the trench, so we have a little bit of normalcy on that side of the house!

The framing inspection was done last Monday, however there were a number of little things that still needed to be completed (like fire caulking where the wires run through the framing in between the floors).  Our contractor took care of those thing and the re-inspection was last Thursday... we passed!

The contractor did a few other odds & ends during all this... the subfloor of the laundry room needed an extra layer of plywood so that it will be even with the hallway flooring once the tile is put down.

He also needs to frame out this door way- the opening is currently larger than needs to be, however we need to make sure it will be wide enough that we can get the washer & dryer in and out of there.  The doorway in our bedroom that goes to the master bath also needs to be framed out- he's left it intact for as long as possible to contain the mess.


Next up- insulation!

Plumbing- roughed in

From the kitchen, you can see the plumbing work that goes up to the master bathroom.












In the downstairs half bath, it looked like the hole for the toilet was placed too close to the sink fixtures.  We already have the vanity & toilet, so we brought them in o check the placement of the plumbing...

They had to move the hole a few inches to the left so that there would be enough room for both pieces.







Master Bath plumbing isn't as far along... they ran the pipes to the second floor but needed to check the shower & tub fixtures and placement of them with us.




The laundry room is looking great...











For the new drain pipe to connect to the septic system, they were going to run it through the basement.  But the pitch that was needed meant that it would cut right through the middle of the "room" and we'd have to be ducking under it.  We don't plan to have much down in the basement, but we still weren't crazy about the sound of this.  Mike talked to the plumber and they decided they could connect outside, but it required a trench to be dug and a bunch of our forsythia bushes to be moved... but we are happy with this solution!

They have a few odds & ends that need to be finished up before the plumbing inspection can take place.  It was supposed to happen Thursday... delays, delays :(

Good news is that the inspector did the rough electrical inspection on Thursday and we passed! 

Once the plumbing gets done they can inspect that and the framing.  Once we pass that, they can start working on the exterior siding & interior insulation!

Back to the Attic- radiator re-installed

We've spent the last couple of weekends back in the attic.

First item up was re-installing the radiator... it had been located out way too far from the wall.   In order to move the radiator back closer to the walls we needed to shorten the pipes that ran under the eaves.

Mike had trouble unscrewing the pipes back in the spring when he removed the radiator to install the subflooring, so had cut them. Now that it's getting cold... we needed to be able to put the heat on.  So, this got bumped to the front of the project list!

Working under the eaves, it took a lot of muscle and use of his reciprocating saw, but Mike got the old pipes out and replaced with new.

Then my mom painted the radiator.  We had the silver Rustoleum paint left over from the bathroom radiator.

So, still a long way from finished... but inching forward!

Before- green radiator is
under the light bulb.

After

Some more shots of the room at this stage...

View from the doorway

Reverse view
(from the far left corner of previous photo)

Photos of the Bathroom Progress

I hadn't gotten around to taking photos of everything for Friday's To Do List update, so here are some pics  & details!

We've replaced all of the grungy looking tan outlets/switches with new white ones.
They all worked just fine, but since they'll be right next to the white wainscoting, I wanted them to match.
I forgot to take "before" shots, but here are the afters:

<---I feel like the outlet on the left is upside down.  Clearly doesn't matter, but Mike said he'll flip it for me.  What a great hubby!

This is looking up to the ceiling light/fan. 

We completed the venting. 

It was originally installed to blow right into a beam in the attic floor- no wonder it didn't work!

We still have to install the actual fixture once the spackling is done.

I've spent lots of time scraping the caulking away 
from where the old shower doors were installed.

Putty knife, razor blade, cleaner... little by little it's coming up, but there's still a mark.  Ugh!  More elbow grease needed!

The mirror has come down- happily, we got it out without breaking it!
We also took down the light fixture for now. It's coming back, but we need it out of the way for spackling.

Mike finished the areas that needed to be re-sheetrocked on Friday, and spackling has started (a week ahead of schedule- yay!)  

As for downstairs, the new electrical cable is bundled up with the existing, as are the new Pex lines.  We'll be closing that wall back up soon.

In the family room, we no longer have the stack running all the way down to the floor, but the plumbing had to drop lower than the ceiling to connect to the new stack.
We have a few creative ideas on how to close all this back up, without it being noticeable.

Installing the Stack- Complete!

Around 7:00 on Friday evening, we had the kids' bathroom back up & running!

There's still a little work that Mike wants to do to neaten things up, and he still needs to get the master bath reconnected.  

But at least we now have one bathroom fully functional!

<--- This is looking up into the foyer ceiling.

This is the newly installed manifold in the basement --->
I have to get down there with the label maker, before we forget what goes where!

By the time all is said & done, we will have saved a couple thousand dollars by Mike doing this himself.  It took two days to get to this point, and I'm guessing another one or two days to wrap things up (not including putting up the drywall & painting of the wall and ceiling). 

We're now figuring out what our best plan of attack is on the to-do list- there's just so much!!!  We're considering jumping into some bathroom projects, while we're here dealing with plumbing... we'll see!

More plumbing...

It was a busy weekend, full of planned and unplanned projects!
The good part is that we've got plenty of fodder for the blog this week!

Hint on project #1: Here's what the foyer looked like last week...

Our first challenge for the weekend began on Friday morning.

I came downstairs and saw dripping from the ceiling.  Mike stood on a chair, pressed the ceiling, and it dripped faster.  Uh-oh.

Mike was off for the day, and I figured that he might rip down the ceiling (he generally underestimates the mess it will make, so leaves the furniture & rugs in place)... so I removed the table, shelf and painting before I went off to work.

Mike ran to Lowe's to pick up building supplies for our planned weekend project (more on that later in the week!)
<-- Shortly after, I received an e-mail with this photo.




Mike ripped the rest open, so we could take a look at what was going on up there.  We weren't sure if it was coming from the flashing on the porch roof, or the bathroom that's right above.

Turns out the water pipe going into the bathroom sink was leaking.  Apparently for quite a while!




We had family coming over on Saturday, so just stuck a bucket under the drip & cleaned up best we could.
Thank goodness they're the understanding DIY type!

But it didn't stop there.  Remember back with the mystery door, we figured there might be a leak on the foyer side?
Well, Sunday seemed as good a time as ever to open up that wall.

There wasn't any drywall- just boards nailed vertically, and paper on top (then painted).


Behind the boards was some electrical, and a bunch of pipes (hot, cold, steam, bathroom drain stack, plus a second drain pipe that doesn't join to the stack until it reaches the basement)


Unfortunately, the drain stack is in bad shape on the bottom half.  So, Mike went last night & got supplies- he plans to replace it all the way down into the basement, & consolidate the second drain into it.

Here's the best shot I have of where we are now-->
I'll have to take a wider one, showing the whole mess later.





There are two silver linings on this little rain cloud!
1- I already picked out the new paint color for the foyer, but it was pretty far down on the To Do List.  This moves it right up!
2- Mike thinks he may need to rip out the sink cabinet in the kids' bathroom to properly get at the pipes (my fingers are crossed!)  I've got a new one all picked out- Bye, Bye mint green sink!!!!

Mystery Door Opened

We left off on Friday's post with the door boxed over at the top.

On Saturday evening, we decided to figure out what it was hiding.  (Yeah, our social life isn't what it used to be!!!)

A little bit of sawing, and... not much to tell!

 

It did, indeed, hold the stack to the master bathroom, plus the hot & cold water pipes.  But NO LEAKS!  YAY!

In a sense, I'm a little sad there was nothing fun in there.  But mostly I'm relieved that there isn't a disaster lurking within!

Mike now thinks the leak must be located in the foyer wall- which of course, doesn't have a handy access door. (It's located directly behind this wall & likely contains the stack to the kids' bathroom, plus the steam heating pipes).


He was just about to take the saw & open up the foyer wall, when I stopped him.  
We have friends coming for a first visit to the house this week, and although I know they'd understand, I'd still rather not have a disaster greeting them at the front door! 
We'll save it for another weekend...